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print for the press. Many of the night games and uncover some truths - most exteriors were positively illegible, and significant is the fact that Jean-Paul is that does strike one as being patently dying of multiple sclerosis. Blanche unfair to both Carriere and his really has insisted from the outset that she is top-notch DOP. travelling to meet spring, an ongoing, mid-winter obsession that Fabienne Anne Reiter • finds rather annoying. But she capi­ tulates to it after their presence in Con­ trecoeur sets off a chain of emotional events ; the two women strike out on the Jean-Guy Noel's highway again with a sickly Jean-Paul between them. If s possible that Contrecoeur is in- Contrecoeur tendetl to work as a somewhat complex mood piece, but it doesn't, finally ; there's so much dramatic baggage here that you're trying to piece together the plot Jean-Guy Noel's Contrecoeur seems full most of the time. Noel has enlisted the of interesting ideas and totally bereft of CONTRECOEUR d. Jean-Guy NoiSlsc. Jean- some means to pull them together. His Guy NoSI, Gilles Nofel d.o.p. Francois Beauchemin tale of three misfits who band together s.d. Jean Rival ed. Marthe de la CheviY3tiet^ p. for a trip to a small Quebec town follows man. Michel Belaieff. Luc Lamy Ist a.d. Jacques a more or less conventional narrative, Wilbrod Benoit loc. man. Francine Forest arL des. vianney Gauthier cost. des. Johanne PregenI and then doesn't resolve it: that's by no make-up Diane Simard cont. Marie La Haye 1st means a cardinal sin, but Contrecoeur asst cam. Louis de Emsted. Michel Bissonnette, doesn't seem sure of its own intentions Robert Vanherweghem 3nd asst. cam. Daniel and ends up confusing the spectator. Jobin asst. sd. Marcel Fraser boom Michel Charron asst. art. d. Claude Pare props Charles Bernier • Today's angry young man for all seasons: Pierre Curzi as Lucien Brouillard That's a flat-out problem. stills Anne de Guise gaffer Jacques Paquet best The story follows Blanche (Monique boy Daniel Chretien, Richer Francoeur key grip Mercure) and Fabienne (AnoukSimard) Michel Chohin grip Jean Trudeau, Marc de Ernsted p. assts. Nathalie Moliavko-Visotzky, Roljert La­ beginning because he believes so badly. as they make plans to visit the town of pierre p. sec. Estelle Lemieux sd. ed. Marcel Bruno Carriere's Curzi is the centre of the movie, and he Contrecoeur where they've left behind Pothier assL ed. Yves Chaput, Paul Dion mixer holds it with Absolute conviction. Strong some fairly complex family ties. Theo Michel Charron neg. cutter Carole Gagnon titles support, as always, is offered by Tifo as (Maurice Podbrey) is Fabienne's father Madeleine Leduc legal Andre Thauvette music Lucien Brouillard Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, Offenbach lab. Les the madonna-faced Alice, and Blay as and Blanche's ex-husband, while the Laboratoires de Film Quebec T616montage, Belte- the rather complex Martineau, whose alcoholic Roger (Gilbert Sicotte) is vue Pathe Lp. Monique Mercure, Anouk Simard, conflicting emotions are finally mangled Fabienne's ex-husband and Blanche's Raymond Cloutier, Gilbert Sicotte, Maurice Pod­ somewhat by the awkward climax. son. The two women take Fabienne's brey, Claude Maher, Frangoise Berd, Michel Forget, Fernand Gignac, Louise Saint-Pierre p. Pierre Lamy Bruno Carriere's first dramatic feature Whafs beautifully evoked here is boyfriend Jean-Paul up on his offer to p.c. Les Productions Pierre Lamy Itee, with assis­ jumps a fair number of hurdles on sheer Quebec's passionate political edge, the drive them to Contrecoeur in his oil tance from the CFDC, rinstitul queb^cois du cine­ energy of intention. This character study way people tend to commit themselves tanker; during a long snowbound night ma, Radio-Quebec, Les Cinemas Unis color 35mm cum political thriller is at times both with Lucien's brand of "all or nothing" on the highway, the three play power running time 95 min. overly ambitious and a little muddled, dedication. The film weaves that passion but that never seems to dull its spirit. into a classic tale of exploiter versus Carrifere displays an instinct for canny exploited with a kind of gentle grace, casting and solid film craft, both of something that remains undefeated which combine to pull him over some with the pitch for dramatic intrigue at tough dramatic terrain. the end. Carriere is a convincing direc­ Lucien Brouillard is mostly about the tor of both actors and narrative, and he's confrontation between personal ambi­ packaged the movie with clean, unpre­ tion and self-sacrifice, but it gleans both tentious technique. But there is a sour texture and tone from its setting. Lucien note here. As to how the camerawork of (Pierre Curzi) is a kind of self-styled the extraordinary Pierre Mignot mea­ social agitator, a one-man crusade sures up, I'm hard-pressed to say: the against injustice whose gestures of distributors opted to meet a tight release protest often land him in trouble. His date by screening a badly-timed test legal net is provided by childhood friend Jacques Martineau (Roger Blay), a well- LUCIEN BROUILLARD d. Bruno Car placed lawyer with visions of ascension riere sc. Jacques Jacob, Jacques Paris, Bruno Car­ riere dialog. Louis Saia d.o.p. Pierre Mignot art d. into Quebec's ruling class. Just how Gilles Aird sd. Serge Beauchemin ed. Michel Arcand much of a liability Lucien will prove to mus. Yves Laferriere 1st a.d. Ginette Breton 2nd him is something Lucien's wife Alice a.d. Robert Martel 3rd a.d. Claude Cartler conti­ (Marie Tifo) sees more clearly than her nuity Ginette Senecai loc. man. Suzanne Girard p. assts. Jean-Pierre Laurendeau, Marie Potvin, Ronald husband. When the reactionary premier Guevremont p. sec. Suzanne Comtois admin. Provencher (Jean Duceppe) blocks Mar- Bernadette Payeur, B^rangere Maltais p. man. tineau's political ambitions, the lawyer Rene Gueissaz 1st asst. cam. Jean Leplne trainee hatches a plot to rid himself of two road­ Christiane Guemon add. cam. Serge Giguere, Bruno Carriere stills Bertrand Carrifere boom Yvon Benoit blocks at once; political double-dealing assL ed. No^l Almey sd. ed. Paul Dion asst. sd. ed. and assassination suddenly hijack the Michel Charron props Marc Corriveau asst. movie. props Philippe Chevalier dec. Maurice Leblanc painter Guy Saint-Georges make-up Micheline If s that twist of melodrama that really Foisy hair Bob Pritchett cost. des. Mich^le Hamel throws the spanner in the works here, dresser Martina Fontaine lighting Daniel Chretien but the calibre of performance and the elec. Robert Lapierre Jr, Jacques Girard, Denis Menard key grip Michel Chouin musicians Robert particulars of place and character pretty Lachapelle, Richard Perrotle, Robert Stanley sd. much redeem the imbalance. Pierre efx. Terry Burke mixer Michel Charron titles Curzi is marvellous as a working-class Michel Laroche animation Film Docteur du Qu^ Quebecer whose battle for right is finally bee Inc. archives Pascal Gelinas, Ateliers Audio- Visueis du Quebec Inc. opticals Antoine Desilel, self-destructive. There's something very Pierre G. Verge, Michel Delisle I.p. Pierre Curzi, childlike about Lucien, and Curzi cap­ Roger Blay, Marie Tifo, Paul Savoie, Jean Duceppe, tures it perfectly with that lopsided grin Germain Houde lab. Bellevue-Path6 Quebec (1972) It6e, Film Opticals IQuebecl Itee, Negt)ec Inc. equip­ of his and wonderfully articulate body ment rental Panavision Canada Itee assoc p. language. His courting of Alice, his angry Marc Daigle exec. p. Rene Gueissaz p.c. 1'Associa­ disbelief at a crooked legal system and tion cooperative de productions audio-visuelles his naive trust in Martineau's inten­ lACPAV), the CFDC, Bellevue-PathS Quebec 119721 Ltd., Famous Players Ltd. and Soci^t^ Radio-Canada tions are what give Lucien his sad-eyed colour 35mm running time 89 min., 1983 grace : he's set up for a crash from the May 1983-Cinema Canada/43 REVIEMi help of a strong, engaging cast, and they able good fortune to have as its chair­ shown on the phone (12 hours a day, we mere mortals : such as Bill MulhoUand's are an intriguing group to watch - a man a man whose deceptive avuncular- are told) steering the Canadian Big Four office, limousine or horse; bankers in notable exception is Maurice Podbrey, ity conceals a power so secure that he banks into a loan-consortium with the twosomes, threesomes or whole rooms- whose obvious unease with the camera was able to commission his own NFB- Canadian government to bail out Dome ; ful, millionaires and moneymen by the worsens an already difficult role. CBC self-portrait and have it executed the Mexican finance minister reveals to pound, franc or mark. This may be of Noel has adopted a kind of art film' by that modern-day artistic wretch, the MulhoUand, one month before the news great interest on some level, but does approach to his narrative, with long documentary freelance. Let there be no became public, that Mexico is broke, but showing ordinary images of bankers closeups of blinking truck lights and the mistake about it: Prisoners of Debt is the film cannot go beyond the external really tell us anything about banking? like, but it doesn't clarify his purpose or William MulhoUand's film : it is about behaviour of bankers' conventional res­ Prisoners of Debt repeatedly makes theme. The film is far from incompetent; him, his bank, and the people who work pectability because that is all there is to the point that the summer of 1982 was a it's just bemusing in a kind of "whafs for him ; in a word, his world, the world see.

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